About

Who I Am

I'm Mike Overell. I build products at ClassDojo, where 45 million kids use what we make every month. Before that, I spent a decade founding and scaling startups.

I'm also a dad to three daughters (ages 2, 8, and 10). They're growing into a world I don't fully understand. I'm trying to figure out how to help them thrive in it.

Why I Started This

I kept asking parents of older kids: how are you preparing them for all this? I talked to teachers, researchers, people building in AI. No one had good answers.

Most people talked about skills. AI literacy. Coding. Critical thinking. But skills have a half-life. Many of the specific things kids learn today might be irrelevant in five years.

So I started researching something different. What are the foundational capabilities that will matter no matter what? The things that won't get automated, won't become obsolete, and actually help kids navigate uncertainty?

What This Is

New Literacies is my attempt to figure it out in public.

I've landed on eight capabilities that seem to matter most. Each one has a deep research synthesis, practical approaches for parents, and notes from what I'm trying with my own kids.

There's also a map of 140+ products in the AI + childhood space, evaluated through the lens of which ones actually build these capabilities.

And there's a research vault with the raw material: studies, frameworks, and open questions I'm still working through.

What This Isn't

I'm not a parenting expert. I'm not an academic. I'm not claiming to have the answers.

I'm a product builder and a dad who started digging and decided to share what I found. Some of it might be useful to you. Some of it might be wrong (please let me know if it is!). Like most parents, I'm learning as I go.

If any of this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.

— Mike

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I write occasional updates on what I'm learning and what's new on the site.